


To Us

by Dramione_Vincet_Semper



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Partners, F/M, Fluff, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Ministry of Magic, new year's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 02:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5649835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dramione_Vincet_Semper/pseuds/Dramione_Vincet_Semper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'To us,' she says. 'We make a good team.'</p><p>'Yeah,' says Malfoy, his eyes flickering as he clinks his flute against hers; they’re more silver than grey, she thinks, before he blinks the disparity away. ‘We do.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Us

**Author's Note:**

> For DHrFaves' January Day Four: New Year's Prompts.

**8th year — Winter, 1998**

 

Hermione doesn’t know why she does it. Surely the runner under _his_ tree is never barren on Christmas Day; she knows Narcissa Malfoy has lavished gifts upon him since the very first day of their first ever term. He’d received little parcels in the morning post on more days throughout their schooling than not, and Hermione can’t imagine that he would ever go without during the holidays.

But she knows more than anyone that not all gifts are physical, nor are all needs, and Draco Malfoy looks more lonely than he’s ever done. She remembers the terror on his face when—

 _No_ . She isn’t going to think about—about _that_.

She remembers his quiet desperation at his Ministry trial, and the stiff angle of his shoulders when the Wizengamot had read off his alleged crimes, each more horrible and disturbing than the last. She remembers being called up to the stand...

_‘And then?’_

_Hermione had gulped, hoping to swallow down her nerves, but all it had done was force up bile._

_‘She—she attacked me.’ And, choking on memories and repressed tears, Hermione had recounted the...agony, there was no other word for it—the agony, of feeling as though every cell in her body had been shattered and burned to ash._

_‘And what did Mr. Malfoy do, hm? Or, shall I say—what_ didn’t _he do?’_

_Even through the anxiety induced by her painful memories, Hermione could not help but bristle a little at the injustice of it all. The prosecutor had been quite biased, intent on locking Malfoy away with his father, and she had been reminded painfully of Harry’s corrupt trial and almost-expulsion from school. And while Professor Dumbledore was no longer there to combat an unfair trial... she was._

_And so she’d said,_

_‘He held under pressure. His whole family demanded him to identify us, and he didn’t. If he had, then we wouldn’t have had enough time to escape. Draco Malfoy saved me, as well as Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter.’_

_Everyone had been gobsmacked, but none so much as Malfoy himself. He’d barely glanced at her the whole trial, but at that point, he seemed unable to look away._

It has been awkward at school, too, ever since the term had recommenced; the eighth years all have their classes together, so she runs into him rather a lot. Sometimes she feels prickling on the back of her neck and she knows, knows he’s doing it again. Staring at her. But when she peeks, he’s always turned away.

Despite this, the window display makes her think of him.

It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, and she’s shopping for Christmas presents for her friends and family while she has the opportunity. She’d just turned around the lane towards Tomes and Scrolls to get something for her mum when she’d seen it—a simple, but elegant practise Snitch. She doesn’t know whether he even flies anymore (though the court order had made it quite clear that he would not be allowed to play Quidditch, among other things). But she knows he can, and that he loves to, and that she doesn’t know much about him other than that.

She leaves Hogsmeade before dusk. Her purse is a little lighter, but so is her heart.

 

x

 

The hall is _almost_ as lavish as it had been in her fourth year, and Hermione expects that Prof— _Headmistress_ McGonagall had arranged it that way on purpose. After all, any reason to celebrate these days is readily embraced. The icicles lining the bannisters, the enchanted snow falling in the Entrance Hall—it’s all so very bittersweet, but she chides herself to focus on the sweet side.

There’s only one table in the Great Hall when she arrives. Almost no one had stayed behind for the winter hols; of course, after such a trying year, most people wanted their families to be whole. And together.

Thus it was that Hermione had ended up across the table from Draco Malfoy. _She_ had _chosen_ not to go home—as her parents’ memories hadn’t been restored ( _yet_ , she thinks, _they haven’t been restored_ yet), her home is too painful, and the Burrow or Grimmauld Place would feel empty and alienating—everyone there still have their families, and as much as she adores them all, it wouldn’t have been the same. Knowing that her parents were alone for their holidays, she had chosen solitude, too.

Malfoy, she knows, hadn’t had a choice. He isn’t allowed to leave Hogwarts for the rest of the school year.

He stares unabashedly. His face is expressionless and it’s _unnerving_ her.

‘Is there something on your mind, Malfoy?’ she says to the peas on her plate, after nearly ten minutes’ worth of uncomfortable silence.

A little _snap_ calls her attention, and when she looks up, he’d placed a little box on the table.

She raises a brow. So, Hermione Granger had given him a gift! Someone owl the press!

‘What are you playing at, Granger?’

‘Sorry for trying to be considerate,’ she snaps, more out of embarrassment than anything else. She shouldn’t have bought him anything at all...

A pause. ‘Granger, you _know_ I can’t play Quidditch.’

Hermione lifts her head in the air as she pointedly butters a roll—and stares at it, rather than at _him_.

‘True, but it’s a _practise_ Snitch, isn’t it? Harry has one to train his reflexes—you know what?’ she says, changing tack as she slaps her roll onto her plate. ‘I don’t care. Use it or don’t. Burn it or Vanish or chuck it in the rubbish bin it for all I care. I’m sorry for trying to do something nice.’

And she levitates her place setting further down the table and sits there, instead.

His eyes burn into the side of her head for the rest of the night.

 

x

 

She’s sat in her common room that night, warm and drowsy in the jumper Mrs. Weasley had sent her. It’s brilliantly blue and impossibly comfortable, and she almost wishes she had opened it at the Burrow, after all.

Stretching, Hermione yawns. The common room is usually quiet, given she only shares it with three other people—McGonagall had thought it unfair to skip out either the seventh or eighth year class, and so had chosen four Heads instead of two—but in the absence of Ginny, Theodore Nott, and the Head Boy to Ginny’s Head Girl, Murad Shafiq... it’s almost unbearably silent.

She’s about to tread up the stairs to her dormitory when she sees it.

Sat beneath the Christmas tree is a single, tiny little parcel, wrapped in gift paper enchanted to look like an eternally snowing little village. Her brow quirks up. There had been nothing there when she’d gone down to dinner...

She tears the package open carefully, wanting to preserve the picturesque scenery no matter how silly it might be of her.

It’s a Chocolate Frog pack; she opens it curiously, and the frog doesn’t jump. Stale, or had it been opened...?

Then she sees it—it’s _her_ card, and she groans. What she had thought had been a—a surprise, or a thoughtful if _late_ gift, was nothing more than a practical joke.

‘Harry,’ she says into her hand mirror after slipping it out of her pocket. When the boys had told her they weren’t returning to Hogwarts with her, they’d broken the news gently with the gift of the mirror—so that they could carry on ‘as though they were there to annoy the pants off her as usual’. She had not been amused, though the gift had been thoughtful. It’s certainly useful, now.

Harry’s grinning face appears in glass surface after only a minute. ‘Happy Christmas, Hermio—’

‘Harry Potter,’ she says, a little snippy after her rather disappointing day, ‘which one of you did it?’

‘Er... did what?’

‘It’s not funny, Harry. Look,’ she says, lifting the card for him to see. ‘You _know_ how much I hate these things.’

Harry’s confused expression becomes instantly more serious. ‘I’m sorry, Hermione. I know it wasn’t any of us—although Fred and George did say they wanted to pop up for a visit ‘round New Year’s, so watch out... I think they’re testing a new product on you—but we would never... do _that_.’

When the maker of Chocolate Frogs had made cards for _them_ , Ron had been ecstatic. Harry had been embarrassed, if not secretly a little pleased.

Hermione had had half a mind to owl them and ask them to _stop_.

The cards remind her of the war, and she doesn’t want to be remembered for something as horrible as _that_. If anything, she always thinks, give her a card once S.P.E.W. is nationally recognised, or once she’s accomplished something positive at the Ministry—anything—but not for something which she had been forced to do. Not for something that had forced her to live with the memories and the scars it had given her.

Every time she sees one of those _cards_ , it brings everything back, and her friends had long learned never to mention them at all.

‘It—it was beautifully wrapped, Harry, look,’ she says a little bit desperately, holding the paper up to the mirror, the snow falling over the deceptively peaceful little mountain town.

He frowns at it. ‘D’you know who it might be from? Have you tried running diagnostics on it?’

‘There’s no name, and I’m not quite sure how to trace it...’

It’s times like these when Harry’s Auror training comes in handy, she thinks, when Harry says, ‘Use _“fateosemitas”_ —clockwise twirl with an upward flick—and it should lead you to its origin. But it’s time sensitive—if it wasn’t placed within the last two hours, the path will fade—’

‘Got it,’ she says, already on her way to the portrait hole with the wrapping paper and Chocolate Frog pack. ‘Thanks, Harry.’ She shoves the mirror into the pocket of her robe.

‘ _Fateosemitas,_ ’ she murmurs. The package glows ever so slightly, and the light extends out several feet. She follows it—it leads her down the stairs—

By the time she reaches the Entrance Hall, the light begins to fade. She can only assume her two hours are up.

‘No! _Fateosemitas_ ,’ she says with a flourish of her wand. The light flickers and restrengthens, leading her to the steps to the dungeons before it evaporates altogether.

x

 

The next day dawns bright and cold, and Hermione pulls out the map Harry had lent her for the school year, figuring she would have much more use for it than he would.

Malfoy’s little dot is already outside; he appears to be sat in one of the courtyards, and Hermione frowns, looking out the window. It’s lightly snowing, and she wonders what on earth would possess Draco Malfoy to awake early on Boxing Day to sit out in the freezing cold.

She slips into her robes and cloak before heading downstairs, map in her hand. She decides to accost him from the other side of the courtyard, so that he might just buy that she had been out for a walk, rather than looking for him specifically.

His cheeks and the tip of his nose are pink when she sees him; how long had he been sitting in the cold?

It’s then that she notices a flash of gold circling around his head.

She steps, and her boot crunches on a clump of packed snow and frost. Malfoy’s head snaps up in her direction and his eyes widen at the sight of her.

‘Malfoy.’

‘Granger,’ he says, after a pause.

She doesn’t know how to proceed; he’s _playing with her gift_ , which can only mean...

They shuffle uncomfortably for too many moments, each glancing at each other and avoiding the other’s gaze in turn. Finally, unable to bear the silence, she clears her throat and asks, ‘Why are you sitting out here in the cold? It’s snowing.’

‘Why are _you_ out here?’

‘I... love the snow,’ she says, flustered. She isn’t about to tell him she’d come out here to throw his Chocolate Frog card in his face.

‘Then I think you have your answer, Granger.’

She nods, bites her lip. ‘I don’t love it so much that I would sit in it for hours, though.’

His gaze snaps up to meet hers. ‘How did you—’

‘Your lips are turning blue, Malfoy.’

Malfoy’s cheeks tinge a brighter pink, his blush mixing with the flush from the frigid morning air.

Hermione draws her wand and he flinches, but she just casts a heating charm on him and stows the ivy away again. Malfoy looks like he doesn’t know whether to thank her or tell her to sod off; after a moment of seeming conflict, he settles for the former.

‘Thanks,’ he says quietly. ‘And, er... thanks for this too, I suppose.’ His hand flashes out and snatches the training Snitch from where it had been looping in the air around him.

She nods. ‘Good catch,’ she says lamely.

‘Might as well keep my reflexes up—even if I won’t play Quidditch again,’ he mutters bitterly, not meeting her eyes. She understands it to be an apology for last night, yet she still frowns. She can’t imagine having to give up something so dear to her—her books? Crookshanks? Hermione supposes she doesn’t have anything to compare it to.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and she truly means it. ‘It’s really unfair! Honestly, that judge was so...’ She trails off indignantly and a little uncertainly—she’s never spoken so candidly to Draco Malfoy, after all.

Malfoy jerks his head in a nod, not meeting her eyes. He doesn’t say anything, but he hasn’t stormed off or insulted her yet, so she supposes this could be considered progress.

She isn’t sure what to say, so she falls back on experiences. ‘Honestly, the Wizengamot can be so corrupt. In our fifth year, Harry had a disciplinary hearing—fought off Dementors ‘in the presence of a Muggle,’ she adds mockingly, ‘and they wanted to expel him for it. When they’d sent the Dementors in the first place!’

‘Why am I not surprised that Potter was off saving Pygmy Puffs and Muggles from imminent death over his summer hols?’ he asks drily. ‘And how did he manage to get out of _his_ hearing?’

‘Well,’ she says, wringing her hands, ‘he had someone to stand up for him.’

His expression flickers, and she can’t read it before his face becomes impassive again. ‘I see.’

The seconds drag on uncomfortably, and Hermione is starting to wonder if she should leave when he finally speaks.

‘What are you doing here, Granger?’

Her heart falters, just the littlest bit. ‘What?’

‘What are you doing? Why did you give me _this?_ ’ He gestures at the Snitch still in his hand, before releasing it; it flutters and seems to stretch its metallic wings before it sets off again, swirling around and around, in between the snowflakes drifting down from the sky.

‘W—I was just trying to do something nice,’ she says.

‘I don’t need your pity.’ His eyes are alive, gleaming like molten silver.

‘It isn’t about pity,’ she says, even though a part of her realises that it is.

‘Yeah? Then what _is_ it about?’

‘You tell me,’ she retorts, pulling the Chocolate Frog card out of her cloak pocket. She blushes when she realises he must think her conceited to have carried it around.

Malfoy scoffs. ‘I never figured you for vain, Granger,’ he says, and her flush deepens.

‘I—you,’ she says, shaking the card in her grip. ‘ _You_ gave me this.’

His jaw tightens. ‘What would make you think that?’

Unable to hold back the urge to throw it in his face in light of his insolent attitude, she says, ‘For one, anyone who actually _knows_ me knows that I _hate_ these cards.’

He blinks, and she almost regrets her admission. Almost.

‘That... doesn’t mean I gave it to you, Granger,’ he says, albeit with less heat.

She sighs. It turns out, she _doesn’t_ know what she’s doing here. And she doesn’t care. She’d extended her hand. She’d done the right thing. If he’d rebuffed her, then that’s on him.

‘Whatever, Malfoy.’ She starts to walk away.

‘Granger.’

She stops, quirking a brow at him over her shoulder.

‘Why do you hate them?’

She sighs again, unable to help herself. Turning, she hugs her arms to her chest and stares down at the whorls of freshly fallen snow on the ground. ‘If you were given a—a bloody Chocolate Frog card, for _your_ involvement in the war, wouldn’t you hate it, too?’ she murmurs, flicking her eyes up to meet his.

Malfoy’s jaw clenches. He nods.

She makes to leave, but then a thought occurs to her and she faces him once more.

‘Then again, I unthinkingly got you a Snitch. I think we’re even.’

His eyes flicker again, but she turns and leaves before she can try to decipher the look in them. She knows she’ll never be able to.

 

x

 

**Winter, 1999**

‘You’re _joking_.’

He isn’t. She knows that Harry would never joke about _this_ , quite simply because it isn’t at all funny.

‘I didn’t believe it either,’ Harry admits. ‘I’m surprised Robards even allowed it.’

‘He shouldn’t have,’ says Ron at once. ‘This is _Malfoy_ we’re talking about—’

‘Ron,’ Hermione admonishes. ‘That isn’t fair. I’m sure Robards screened him quite thoroughly before agreeing to allow him into Auror training—’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean—this is _Malfoy_ we’re talking about,’ he says, grinning. ‘Used to run up to see Madam Pomfrey every time he broke a nail, didn’t he?’

Despite herself, Hermione laughs.

 

x

 

He looks just like she remembers—all hard lines, pale blond and white and grey. He blinks at her.

_‘Granger?’_

‘Hi,’ she says, a bit awkwardly. ‘Welcome to the department—’

‘I didn’t know you were an Auror.’

She twists her mouth. ‘Well, technically I’m not. I’m with DMLE, but I have Auror training. We work hand-in-hand with the Auror’s office. And... I’m your liaison.’

She waits for a biting remark, a grimace, a look. But all he does is nod.

Hermione spends the next few weeks helping to put Malfoy through his training—and Merlin, he’s actually _good_ at it. She blames it on his Quidditch skills; she knows for a fact that he’d rarely ever held a wand in actual battle during the war.

‘Think fast,’ comes the command from Robards, a month into Malfoy’s training. He rounds his wand at Malfoy, and together the Head of the Auror Office and Hermione corner the blond.

Malfoy spins his wand, up, out, left, down—ducks—jabs—

‘Protego!’ she cries, when the jabbing motion sends a swirl of light straight at her. ‘Stupefy!’

He blocks it, but she follows it up with a stinging jinx; Robards sends a nonverbal at Malfoy’s trainers to knock his feet out from under him—  

Malfoy blocks the former and jumps over the latter. He moves closer—

He spins, casting curse after jinx after hex at Robards, all the while edging his way toward Hermione—

‘Impedimenta! Incarcerous!’ she cries, reluctant to break rank—he blocks—

His shoulder crashes into her and they both go toppling, down—

Her wand is snatched out of her hand, and thrown into the hand already clutching his own; he pins her hips with his, pins her wrists with his free hand, and levels both wands at Robards.

‘Stupefy,’ he pants, mindless of Hermione squirming beneath him.

‘Malfoy you _arse_ ,’ she gripes, trying to kick him, headbutt him, jab him with a knee.

‘Protego! Expelliarmus! _Expelliarmus!_ ’

But Malfoy blocks and blocks again. He and Robards are at a standstill.

‘...Very good, Malfoy,’ says the latter, after a moment. ‘Although you may want to get off your partner, before she hexes your bits off.’

And the warning holds more than a grain of the truth; Hermione is _fuming_. She snatches her wand from his grip the second he lets go of her wrists.

Her fury only increases throughout the day, when Malfoy seems unperturbed by her mood. They’re sat in their shared office while she writes up his report when Harry pokes his head in the door frame.

‘Hey Hermione, I was wondering if you have that file—’

‘Yes, take it,’ she snaps, levitating the file toward him with a flick of her wrist.

She doesn’t bother to look at him, but she can just imagine his expression when the door slides more fully open—the same expression he’d adopted when trying to placate Grawp, no doubt.

‘Er... is something wrong, Hermione?’

‘No. Of _course_ not.’

‘...Right. Well, er... Malfoy, could I speak to you out in the—’

‘No need, Potter,’ says Malfoy, sounding all too comfortable for Hermione’s taste. ‘I’m sure she’ll whinge all about it to you later.’

‘Whinge?’ she says, whirling on Malfoy. ‘That was a _low move_ , and you know it! I—’

‘Granger, get _over_ it. You’re so... _small_. Of course you’re an easy target—’

‘it, even from you—’ She cuts herself off. ‘”Easy target”? You arse—’

‘Physically, Granger, physically!’

‘Er...right,’ says Harry. ‘Thanks for the file, Hermione. I’m just going to...’

‘—such a, a, a history! Of all the new trainees I just _had_ to be settled with you—’

‘It’s not my fault you’re inept at something for once, Granger.’

Hermione barely registers Harry still frozen in the doorway; her ire is all for one man, and _he_ is certainly not her friend.

‘In _ept_ ? _Inept?_ Are you calling me _inept_ because _you_ pinned me to the ground with your bloody hips and _stole_ my wand away from me?’

Malfoy’s eyes widen and his cheeks redden just a little bit—she supposes in anger. ‘You of all people should know it wasn’t like—that,’ he spits, ‘And no, I’m calling you inept because you are! I shouldn’t have been able to steal your wand in the first place—’

‘ENOUGH.’

Hermione starts, and realising Harry had heard everything, averts her gaze from her friend. She doesn’t want _him_ to think she’s... not good enough to do her own bloody job!

‘Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ Harry says heatedly, ‘but you lot are partners—no, Malfoy, I’m not taking sides,’ he says, when Malfoy opens his mouth, ‘just bloody listen. _Both_ of you. I know your history. So does Robards. If he still thinks you’re well-matched as partners, then you’re going to have to get used to each other, because short of putting in a resume elsewhere, you’re stuck together.’

Hermione bites her lip. Her neck prickles with shame at her—and his!—behaviour.

‘Now—you,’ he says, his emerald glare turning to square off with Malfoy’s iron one. ‘If I ever hear about you “pinning her hips with yours” again, I am going to hex your bits off.’

Before Malfoy can respond to that, Harry turns to Hermione, his glare softening rather a lot as he meets her gaze.

‘And you...’ He runs a hand through his hair. ‘You need to be able to fend off physical attacks as well as magical, okay? No,’ he says, when she tries to interrupt. He grips her arms above the elbows, his green eyes imploring her to understand. ‘Hermione. You _have_ to. You aren’t always going to have a wand—’

‘All right,’ she says, not meeting his eyes.

Harry studies her. ‘I’ll put in the work order. We’ll set something up. And... and maybe something at the Burrow.’

Her eyebrow quirks, but he just shakes his head. ‘Never mind that right now. Finish up your report.’ He releases her.

Hermione sighs. Before Harry can exit the office, she says, ‘Harry? I’m sorry. Our behaviour was...’

‘Unbecoming,’ Malfoy supplies distantly. She’s surprised he’s owned up to it.

Harry nods between them. ‘Don’t worry about it. I... won’t report it. We smoothed it over easily enough.’

Hermione nods her thanks. Harry may be their superior now, but he’s always fair.

‘See you tomorrow?’ he asks, heading for the door. ‘I know I said tonight, but Ginny has an emergency practise with the Harpies so we had to move up our date night.’

She nods again. ‘Have fun, Harry.’

She returns to her paperwork, but not before realising Malfoy is giving her an odd look. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

Shrugging off her intuition, Hermione returns to her paperwork, assessing Malfoy’s training session and admitting that, all things considered... he had done rather well.

 

x

 

Training becomes... _eventful_ , although Hermione thinks that may not be the best word for it. During the day, she puts Malfoy through his Auror training, and in the evenings he trains her physically. She’s learned how to throw him over her shoulder, now, and she threatens to do every time he makes her cross.

By the end of the day, they’re always exhausted. Today, especially, had been exhausting—Harry had taken their wands that morning when they hadn’t been looking, and so they’d had to go the whole day without magic.

‘You look horrible, Granger,’ Malfoy says, wiping sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.

‘And you don’t?’ she challenges with an arched brow, surveying his form pointedly. His white Oxford shirt clings to him with sweat, and his hair is impossibly mussed. He absolutely reeks of cologne, as though he’d bathed in it, but the musk mixes with his sweat and she scrunches her nose at the combination.

‘Never.’

Hermione rolls her eyes. ‘I see you’ve survived our training session with your ego intact.’

‘Survived, maybe, but only just,’ he complains. ‘I’m bloody starving.’

She checks her watch, her eyes widening at the time. ‘Well, it _is_ half midnight,’ she says.

His smirk returns in full blast. ‘Is it? Well then. Happy New Year’s Eve, Granger.’

‘I— _what?_ ’ She casts a time spell with her newly reacquired wand and notes the time and date—0:31 on New Year’s Eve.

‘As I said, Happy New Year’s Eve,’ he repeats, slipping his robes back on. His stomach rumbles loudly.

Hermione bites her lip. She’s rather hungry, too...

‘Spit it out, Granger.’ At her puzzled look, Malfoy adds, ‘You’re making that face.’

‘What face?’

‘That face you make when you’re thinking too much for your own good.’

She scrunches her brows and studies him, but he’s intent on adjusting the sleeves of his robes, and doesn’t meet her eyes.

‘Well,’ she says after a few moments of trying to decipher his tone, ‘I’m hungry, too.’

When Malfoy _does_ meet her gaze, she finds she can’t quite read him. She sighs.

But he just asks, ‘My place or yours?’

 

x

 

She has to admit; she hadn’t expected _this_.

She’d chosen his place, if only because her curiosity wouldn’t let her say anything else. And Merlin, is she curious now.

‘Have you never seen a sitting room before, Granger?’

She blushes. ‘I was just expecting something more…’

‘Something more like the manor?’

Hermione nods, still drinking in her surroundings.

A black leather sofa and armchair set, along with a coffee table, adorn the mostly empty sitting room. There’s a fireplace that’s clearly been expanded to allow for Floo travel, and Malfoy’s old Nimbus 2001 propped up on a display, next to a much newer, shinier model. A black bookcase that holds more trinkets than books is stood against the wall, but other than that, the white walls of the room are completely bare.

‘Or at least,’ she says, turning back to him, ‘I was expecting _more_ , in general.’

He shrugs, setting the takeaway bag on the coffee table. ‘I’m hardly ever here anyway, am I?’ He gestures at the food. ‘You can start eating without me. I need the loo.’

She scrunches her nose. _Boys_ , she thinks, as he disappears down the hall.

Hermione shifts to take her food out of the bag when a glint of gold catches her eye.

She takes a step towards the bookshelf—it had looked very like… but it couldn’t be—

The little Snitch unfurls its wings again, and the light of the fire flits across the surface, casting a sheen like molten gold—

‘You didn’t have to wait for me,’ says Malfoy as he reenters the room.

She jumps, but then she smiles at him, even as he quirks a brow.

‘Er… are you all right?’

‘Of course,’ she says lightly, before she turns for the table with a skip in her step.

Her neck tingles and she knows he’s staring at her, but she doesn’t care. She smiles as she dollops rice onto her plate. Draco Malfoy had kept her gift, and given it a little display stand and everything—and that was a gift in and of itself.

‘So Malfoy,’ she says, as he picks at his rice. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

 

x

 

’But what do we toast _to_?’

She gives him a look. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never made a toast.’

‘We used to, sometimes, after Quidditch games,’ he says, staring into his glass. ‘Never really saw the point. We’re only going to drink it anyway.’ And he lifts his glass.

‘Draco Malfoy!’ she chides; he pauses, the drink not yet touching his lips. ‘It’s meant to be _special._ ’

‘Granger, it’s been the new year for three minutes,’ he grumbles, but he still doesn’t take a sip.

‘Fine. To us,’ she says, gesturing at his Auror robes with her free hand. ‘We make a good team.’

‘Yeah,’ says Malfoy, his eyes flickering as he clinks his flute against hers; they’re more silver than grey, she thinks, before he blinks the disparity away. ‘We do.’

 

x

 

**Winter, 2000**

 

The owl all but bursts through the open window, its feathers ruffled as though it had just been shoved out another. She rips the strip of parchment off its leg and Disapparates at once.

Draco is already stood there, waiting for her. He gives her a sheet of parchment without a word; she reads it and then disintegrates it to ash with a flick of her wand.

‘This is _not_ how I’d anticipated our New Year’s going,’ she says, as she takes his hand.

For months now there’s been a resurgence in Death Eater activity, and they’ve only been emboldened by the arrival of the winter hols.

‘We can still get takeaway after, Granger,’ he tells her. ‘Just like last year.’

She understands what he means.

He’s promising her that they’ll come back from this mission; that there will be takeaway to come back to, traditions to be upheld and to be upheld together. She blinks rapidly.

‘And pretentiously dry champagne.’

He squeezes her hand, and they Disapparate.

Dust fills the air and she chokes—it is all around her, filling her lungs and clouding her eyes—

‘Avada Kedavra!’ he cries, and all the dust turns green for one here-and-gone-again twist in time.

The masked figure falls away into the dirt—a blinding flash of light—

She still can’t breathe— _swish, flick, twist, turn—_

She doesn’t know whether it’s been minutes or an hour of _swish, flick, duck, shield_ before she hears him.

‘Hermione!’

A flash of whitest blond enters her vision just as a swath of purple flames bounds her way.

Draco falls.

 

x

 

He wakes up days later. Hermione is sure that her glare might just finish off the job that Dolohov had left incomplete.

Draco chokes, and asks for water. She pours him out a cup, glaring death at him all the while.

Several sips later, the git seems to have found his voice, because he lifts his paper cup with a shaking hand and says, ‘To us.’

‘You stupid _prat_ ,’ she says, her eyes misting as they drink in the sight of this _idiot_ —this stupid, troll-brained, hopeless, _living_ idiot.

‘I told you it’d be just like last year, Granger,’ says the idiot, the ghost of a smirk playing on his lips. ‘I keep my promises.’

She folds her arms across her chest, glare deepening.

‘Of course, I suppose this means you’ll have to go on without me,’ he says dramatically, his smirk widening.

‘And let you off easily? Not on your life,’ she says, and she means it. She spends the rest of his time at St. Mungo’s sat by his side, glaring holes into his head (but, perhaps, secretly, not ready to leave his side, either; she remembers those flames, and the agony born of them, and he’d embraced it all to spare her from it).

She glares at him until he recovers, and then, every time they go on a mission together, and sometimes she brings it up when she’s cross at him because he’s not _allowed_ to save her from things she knows (from experience!) that she can handle perfectly well herself, thank you very much.

 

x

 

**Winter, 2001**

 

‘Granger, post for you,’ says Draco, coming into the sitting room with a parchment envelope in hand.

‘Why would you call your wife her maiden name?’ asks Ron, pausing in his perusal of the tray of biscuits to scrunch his nose in confusion. ‘When are you ever going to start calling her “Hermione”?’

‘Don’t worry, Weasley, she makes me call her “Hermione” all the time,’ says Draco, smirk in full blast.

‘At least green is a holiday colour,’ jokes Ginny into her ear; both girls laugh.

Hermione has to agree. Harry and Ron look more than a little peckish at that pronouncement.

Harry mimes gagging into his champagne flute before pouring Ron a glass. ‘Hermione?’ he asks, gesturing to the bubbly.

Hermione gives a sheepish little smile, shakes her head. ‘I can’t.’

The room stills.

‘No way!’ says Ron, while Ginny hugs her as best she can.

‘They’ll be in the same year!’ she exclaims, one hand on her own stomach that had only just recently begun to show.

‘But not in the same house, I’m afraid,’ says Draco, settling in next to her on the sofa and leaning into her side. It’s as much affection as he ever shows in front of her friends, but she leans into him, too, and she can swear she’s stolen a smile out of him.

‘I think I have enough Gryffindor in me to drown out the Slytherin genes,’ she says, smiling.

Draco pours out two glasses of sparkling juice and hands her one. Their glasses clink.

‘To us.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> He keeps that Snitch forever by the way


End file.
